


Building Trust

by eerian_sadow



Series: Species Imperative [2]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Community: tf_speedwriting, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War or no, he's going to help them survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building Trust

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was originally written for the May 7, 2011 round over at the livejournal community tf_speedwriting. the prompt was: Scenario - seeking acceptance.

He found them living in the remains of an old shop. Too much time and too many battles had passed for him to be able to accurately identify what type of shop it had been, but it had the feel of a small private business. At first he had thought them to simply be some sort of primitive creatures, taking up residence in the ancient building.

Then one of them had growled and sworn at him in the harsh dialect of the Kaon slums.

He had backed away from their hiding place quickly then, not wanting to further aggravate such young—and they had to be young or they would be registered in the identification banks—mechs and possibly drive them away forever. However they had gotten here, they were not safe or cared for and he would be remiss in his duties as an Autobot and as an elder of their race if he left them to die due to his own neglect.

Quietly, he left his fuel ration where they would be able to find it and then retreated back to base.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The next time he saw them, they were separated from each other and on opposite sides of the energon plant he was scrounging through for recyclable materials. He had been looking for parts for the base’s energon converters and had, instead, found them. He ducked into the shadows so that they would not see him right away and looked them over. 

The two young mechs were most certainly younger than he had initially thought. They still carried the flat finish of quickly growing hatchling plating, with the barest of color nanites brightening up the finish. They would be a beautiful silver and gold when they stopped growing, but for now they were a drab grey and dull yellow. They shared a frame design and were almost definitely the same age—either pod mates from the same progenitors or spark twins.

Either was enough of a rarity to spark his scientific curiosity, though he would never inflict it on them without permission, and it doubled his desire to see them protected and nurtured. Again, he left them his fuel ration and made just enough noise to attract their attention to it. Then he ducked back into the abandoned city before they could confront him.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The next time he saw the two young mechs, he deliberately sought them out. He made his way back to the abandoned shop they called home with mineral rich energon that he had found in the remains of a bombed out repair bay and he intended to give it to mechs that required it. He made plenty of noise as he approached their home so that they would know he was coming and then stopped at the threshold of the door like any proper guest.

The yellow mech growled at him again, but the grey approached him cautiously. This would be a turning point in their interactions; either they would accept that he was not a threat or he would, very likely, not be reporting back to Prowl at the end of his patrol.

The grey mech had weapons drawn—and his spark ached that such a young mech had been required to forfeit proper physical development to have built in weaponry already—but he did not raise them in threat. “You… followed… us.”

The young mech’s speech was slow and unsure, as if he had not been required to use it in a very long time. And if the two were twins as he suspected, then that was entirely possible.

“No. I have not followed you. I found you once by accident and once we merely happened to be in the same place at the same time.” Carefully, he extended the energon he was carrying toward the grey mech. “I have more fuel for you and your brother.”

There was a flurry of staticky vocalizations and chirped half-words from the yellow mech at that. The grey mech ignored them and moved closer to the fuel. “Why?”

“Because you are young and you need it. I am old and can do without.”

The grey mech retracted one of his weapons and reached out carefully to take the energon. “Go now.”

He sighed. He hadn’t been expecting to be dismissed quite so abruptly. “As you wish. May I return if I find more supplies for you?”

The young mechs exchanged more static and half-words, then the grey mech nodded slowly.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It was long meta-cycles before he saw the young mechs again. He managed to forage extra fuel and parts for them and deliver them to the shop, but never when they were around. Either they had decided he was a threat to their continued survival or something had happened to them; the odds that they were simply gone that often were otherwise astronomical. But he continued scrounging and delivering, in the hopes that they would survive and become adult mechs who had some small chance of living long enough to see peace.

It was during one of these scrounging runs that the Decepticons finally caught up to him. It really had only been a matter of time before they did, but it was disheartening all the same.

He had always been good at precision shooting, though his accuracy went down as his foes drew closer. He managed to account for four members of the seven mech team before the other three got close enough to him to render his ranged weaponry ineffective. One of the surviving Decepticons knocked him to the ground before he could even try to run, he knew his time was up, as the mech drew back a well-armored fist and drove it toward his facial plating; they would beat him offline and take him back to their own base to hack his processor for any useful data he carried.

The blow never landed, however, as the large mech was bowled aside by a streak of golden yellow. He didn’t give in to the confusion that demanded his attention, however; he sprang back up on his feet as nimbly as he could and brought one of his short range plasma canons to bear on the battlefield.

He absently noted the silver-grey form of one of the young mechs taking down one of his assailants as he dispatched the third mech, who had been attempting to sneak up on the yellow-gold mech who had saved him. Moments later, both of the young mechs turned to him with smiles that were bright with battle glee.

His young mechs were most certainly made to live and survive in this war-ravaged time.

“Thank you.” He gave them a relieved smile. 

The silver-grey mech—and how they were growing into their colors after so long!—approached him. “You’re welcome. We help each other.”

“Yes.” His smile widened as the young mech spoke. His pronunciation was still very careful and deliberate, but his vocalizations were smoother. “You’ve been practicing.”

The silver-grey mech puffed up with pride. “Yes! I want to talk with… friend.”

There was a hesitation before that last word that made his spark ache for them all over again. “I would like very much to talk with you as a friend. My designation is Perceptor.”

“Sunstreaker.” The silver-grey mech pointed at his brother, then at himself. “Sideswipe.”

Perceptor smiled. “I am glad to finally know your names.”


End file.
